Author

Subject: The Alarm System

Shalie21

01:48 18/04/2000 

My aunt was showing me and some other people her house. We came in the door into the entry way which was a very small square. There were some steep stairs that led upwards to the living room.

In the living room there was a machine with bright white lights. My aunt said that it was her new alarm system. I went close to it and felt the heat of the lights on my head. A male robotic voice said, "Hot Cranium." My aunt said, "That's not supposed to be on." The other people came near the alarm system too and it had similar comments about their body heat.

We went into a hallway to our left and my aunt told us to be very still. I guess we had tripped the alarm with our body heat.

Suddenly spinning spears as thick as logs came out of the wall and moved across to the other wall. We were not supposed to touch them because we would get hurt. There was one in front of my legs almost touching them and one behind my legs almost touching them, so I had no room to move.

I could not keep my balance and my left leg kept touching the spear thing. When my shin touched the spear thing, the place where it touched turned purple (because it was bleeding perhaps?) It stung.

I then lifted my left leg up over the spear things and I felt much better and safer.

Dream edited for easier reading - JT, 2005

Jane Anderson

09:49 18/04/2000 

Hi Shalie21,

So many of the dreams you post to the forum include references to stairs or steps, legs or feet, and tripping or falling down .. or considering going up.

Your dreams are long and detailed and although each and every part of all your dreams is meaningful in interpretation, I feel you would get clear insight by looking back over a few months of your dreams and looking for repetitions and patterns.

Here's a practical suggestion on how to do this:

Take four different coloured highlighter pens, e.g. pink, blue, yellow and green. Each colour stands for a different type of repetition you're looking for. For example:

pink: emotions and feeling words

blue: stairs, steps, legs, feet

yellow: going down/ lower levels

green: going up/ higher levels

Then go back through your Dream Journal and highlight the appropriate words. For example, wherever you see the word stair or step (or similar) highlight the word blue. Don't highlight the sentence or even the context ... just the word.

Do this for each of the four colours for at least three months of dreams. (You'll be surprised how easy this is to do once you focus your eyes on the keywords you're looking for.)

When you've finished, make a list of the dates of your dreams, starting from the past and working up to the present, and under each date write a list of the words you marked with the highlighter pen in the order in which they occured.

You will see a pattern.

For example, certain emotions or feelings are likely to be linked with the steps or the levels.

This will help you to see an overall pattern in your dreams which can be a great starting point to interpretation - like standing back far enough to 'get the picture' and then coming in closer for details.

This is a technique many of you may find useful to do from time to time, adapting the colours and keywords accordingly. Always keep one highlighter colour for marking emotions or feeling words though.

Shalie21: you'll find the online books you can access as a member helpful in working through your detailed dreams too, as well as the deep support happening at the Members' Community Forum.

Also, Shalie21, I thought I'd leave you with one comment concerning your dream above, as I'm sure others will look at the rest of it with you:

Notice the contrast of opposites: UP a level is the warning machine, yet when you lift your leg UP over the spears you felt better and safer. It seems your dream is working through a conflict over your feelings here: one part of you feeling better and safe about the higher levels, one part feeling danger..... the exercise I have given you will clarify all of this.

Enjoy the exercise. Working through your own dreams is deeply rewarding.

And let us know how you go!

Jane Anderson

Jane Anderson

10:04 18/04/2000 

Shalie21:

I went to the Synchronicity Forum after posting here and saw your mention of 'downfall' - a synchronicity which would seem to correspond with my observation above that many of your posted dreams repeat down, falling etc.

In your Synchronicity Forum post you saw downfall as the recurring result of "using truth to deceive".

I suggest, when you do the exercise I outlined above, that you circle all words in your dreams that relate to truth, deception or demise/loss/downfall.

You're getting closer and closer ..

Jane Anderson

shalie21

07:30 19/04/2000 

That sounds like an interesting exercise and I will try it :-)

shalie21

01:54 25/04/2000 

I tried the exercise, and did see many similarities in my dreams, not as much for the feelings. Though I do seem to have a lot of frustrated feelings. but I did find that In a lot of my dreams I'm moving both forward and backwards, up and down. And many refferences to arrows (spears) and spinning. quite chaotic and doesn't really let me get anywhere.

Jane Anderson

09:47 25/04/2000 

Hi Shalie 21,

Great work. "Quite chaotic and doesn't really get me anywhere".

This could be the bottom line statement. What is the balance of 'chaos' and stillness in your life?

When you look back at your biggest turning points, your biggest breakthroughs, did they generally emerge from periods of chaos or stillness?

The main levels your dreams have repeated are forward, back, up and down. For your next exercise, do a visualisation/meditation. It may take you a while to get the feel of this, but work at it in your own way until it speaks to you. Create the visualisation along the following lines:

See yourself standing in the centre of a peaceful room, near a staircase which leads up to a higher level and down to a lower level. Behind you is the door you entered some time ago and in front of you is the door which leads to the future.

In this visualisation, feel the presence of a wise old woman standing with you. She is there to help you to see what needs to be seen, to help you to feel what needs to be felt and to whisper words of encouragment and secret messages to you.

You can choose to go in any direction: up the stairs, down the stairs, backwards (visualise yourself moving backwards to the door you originally entered) or forwards.

In each case (in one visualisation, or over many re-visits), see where the up/down/back/forward move takes you and let the wise old woman help you to see, feel and hear what you need to know.

When you feel that you have explored each of the four directions meaningfully, express what you have learned from each direction as a poem.

My feeling about the arrows, spears and spinning is that they are symbolic of directional confusion.

Getting in touch with the 'four winds' which blow you this way and that will help you to see the forces which are actively shaping your life at the time of these dreams. This self-knowledge will help you to make changes which put your future-shaping firmly in your own creative hands.

Enjoy the exercise, and let us know how you go!

Jane Anderson